Autostitch – Panoramic Photos Don’t Get Any Simpler

We are regularly asked, can you recommend a photo stitching program? I have been hesitant to do so. We pride ourselves on having the easiest to use tour product on the market. There is no way we’ll recommend a difficult to use product. And every photo stitching program I tested seemed too difficult for the average computer user to handle without frustration.

I’ve known about the technology for a long time. But I lost track of it. It was in early development stages the first time I saw it.

A few weeks ago I looked at their site again and notice they had a free downloadable demo version for Windows, but more importantly, I saw that several very inexpensive applications had been built on their code. Autopano Pro ($119, Windows, Mac), Serif Panorama Plus ($49.99, Windows), and Calico ($39, Mac). I tested all three applications and the free demo version as well (which is fully functional with no watermarking). Except for a few bells and whistles, they all work on the exact same base code. They’re all brain dead simple. And they all yielded the exact same result. I chose Calico for my own personal use, because it was the least expensive of the three.

Here’s a shot with some tough tile floor lines. No manual involvement at all.

I don’t want to spend my time doing anything I don’t have to do. Every other stitching program I’ve tested has required some level of manual intervention in the process to get decent results. Not these three. The programs built on the Autostitch technology are truly automatic. There’s really only one step – click the stitch button.

Here is an example to show how it deals with wood flooring. I thought this would be a tough test, since there are lots of straight lines and I was, again, not shooting with a tripod. But as you can see, it nailed the myriad of straight lines in the wood floor.

And here is the detail on the floor. The program connected all of the straight lines with no input from me at all.

The demo is free and whether it’s Windows for $49 or Mac for $39… it’s a no brainer. There’s nothing to learn. Upoad photos. It does the rest. And if you’re using a stitching software that isn’t this simple, you may want to give this more than a casual glance.